Bot Reviews: Studio Series Core Ravage (Bumblebee Version)

The Prologue Weirdos are coming, the Prologue Wierdos are coming! I don’t think of them as “wierdos” myself, but the circles I run in sometimes call them that. Yes, four years after they were added in last-minute reshoots to the Bumblebee movie, the full cast of characters from that film’s Cybertron-based scenes are getting a near-complete run of figures in Studio Series, across a couple of waves. A lot of people feel a lot of different ways about this group’s bashed-together G1-with-tech-greebles designs, but personally, I really vibe with them on multiple levels, so I think I might go all-in on them, starting with the smallest one.

Odd fact: Ravage was the only Decepticon in the film to get his name said onscreen, despite not even being one of the main villains. That being said, when it comes to the Cybertron-set scenes, he at least got one of the most memorable (and trailer-worthy) moments to himself, getting ejected from Soundwave, and mauling Optimus a bit. This version of Ravage is a small Core-class figure, is something new for Studio Series, which has only existed as a Deluxe-and-above toyline since its debut in 2017, and he and Bumblebee movie Shockwave are some of the first of these smaller guys. Previously, small movie creatures like Ravage got released as tiny “slug” figures packed in with bigger guys, molded plastic figures with a couple joints, and maybe two or three paint colors, so it’s good to see a chance to have him done as a proper figure.

Cat Mode

First things first, out of the box, you’ve got to flip his cat hips backwards into their proper beast-mode configuration, until they click in, otherwise he won’t be stable. And then you add his missile pods to his thighs, a small panel to his back, and you’re ready to go!

People love to act like Ravage is a dog, usually as a gag, but in this case, I’ll admit this is one of the more dog-like takes on him, largely thanks to his elongated shout with its toothy maw. Whatever he is, though he’s good-looking.

This take on Ravage is less the weird alien of the Bayverse films, and more of an advanced machine in the shape of a predator. He makes me think of those horrible dystopian robot police dogs that the American police are burning money on, an appropriate choice for a Decepticon.

Outside of the industrial, hydraulic machine aesthetic, they didn’t really re-invent the wheel on this design, much like the rest of the Bee Prologuers. It’s still a black quadruped with little missile pods on his hips (which, by the way, according to the 3A figures, go upside-down compared to what you’d expect, with the extra little sticky-out bits on the bottom instead of the top).

It’s an impressively screen-accurate sculpt for its size, looking pretty much dead-on to his renders (or rather, again, those high-end 3A figures that are often better references), albeit a little less colorful around the limbs.

And that’s an accomplishment to me. Having a screen-accurate, transforming Ravage at a sub-Deluxe scale is just something I don’t think I’ve seen before, or else hasn’t happened often. It’s genuinely impressive.

Speaking of scale, this is a nicely-sized figure, bigger than the Siege Micromaster. He feels a bit smaller than the other Core-Class figures I’ve handled, but he makes up for it with how much more complex he seems in terms of partscount and articulation.

While I mentioned before he’s a little under-painted compared to his screen design (mostly his lower legs, which are uncolored here), he’s got a ton of color on him. He’s cast in black and light grey, and comes with accents of white and red on his limbs and face, which seems unusual for Ravage, but really adds to the sort of “sophisticated machine” look of him. He’s also got tiny Decepticon logos on his legs, bits of silver, and yellow eyes. Just enough to make him interesting and colorful.

As I mentioned at the start of the review, you’ve got to pop his hips into place, otherwise his back half feels really unstable. Once you get them in place, he’s very solid and stable on his four legs.

He’s also surprisingly articulated for such a little guy! He’s got ankle rockers, knee/elbow joints, and shoulder/hip joints that have a tiny bit of outward motion.

At the back, he can raise and lower his tail (though be careful not to unclip his hips), and up front, his neck raises and lowers, and he’s even got an articulated jaw, all a lot more than what I was expecting at this size, though some of those joints are there for the transformation.

Also important (well, for me) is that he’s stable and poseable enough that you can stand him on two legs like a person.

Outside of those clip-on hip rockets, and that one square vent-like piece on his back, Ravage’s big accessory is a big, shiny silver missile-ish-laser-ish thingy, sculpted to resemble one of the missiles that came with the G1 Soundwave figure.

That’s because it’s really meant for the larger Bumblebee Movie Soundwave Voyager, and isn’t something Ravage had in the film.

Still, it works with him, in that you’re meant to mount it on his belly, as an underslung weapon, and it looks alright, if a bit unwieldy.

If you like, you can also clip it into one of his hip mounting points instead of his smaller rockets, and put one of those on his stomach.

In fact, his belly, hips and back all have the same small-sized mounting points, so you can rotate his three weapons, and one vent-like piece of armor around in whatever configuration you want, though I’ll probably just give it to Soundwave in practice.

Transformation

Ravage compresses into a cube, and you’d think that it’d be simple to do, but it can be deceptively complex to pull off. I think a part of that is how stuff like the exact configuration of his legs and feet aren’t really telegraphed the way they would be in a more defined alternate mode, though there’s at least pegs and holes to help you guide all four limbs into place (feel free to squint at the photos further down, I know I will.) It gets a bit more difficult if you want to use this form with Soundwave, because things really need to be in their cubiest shape if he’s going to fit in Soundwave’s chest.

Still, I managed to figure it out after a few back and forth transformation, it was just more of a learning curve than you’d expect on a Core-class figure.

He also uses a little bit of partsforming, in that the panel on his back, and his hip rockets both come off and migrate to different spots on him, and like I said in last week’s Wreck-Gar review, more figures should be willing to do simple, easy swaps like this.

Box Mode

There’s a line of boutique figures from a company called 52Toys, called BeastBox (no relation to the Transformer). Their gimmick is they’re a series of robotic creatures who all compress into cubes.

This version of Ravage is basically one of those, in miniature, compressing into a rectangle instead of a cube.

No matter what way you slice it, this altmode’s kind of nothing, it’s just him crammed into a geometric shape, with no attempt to really be anything. It’s 100 percent “Accessory for Soundwave: The Mode.” To be fair, Siege’s Micromaster tapes were pretty nonchalant about trying to look like minicassette tapes, but on most of them, there was some kind of effort in terms of sculpt or paintwork to vaguely gesture towards the idea. Here, no such thing. He’s just a Cat Cube.

Okay, to be fair, there’s one thing you can do that does sort of make it work as an independent alternate mode: The one accessory that isn’t integrated into this form is his silver Soundwave missile, and you can mount it on top of the box, closer to one of the narrow sides.

It can spin pretty freely once it’s in there, and it sort of makes the whole thing read as a laser turret, some kind of automated defense system.

It’s really not much, but it’s something. I kind of wish they’d at least given him a War for Cybertron-scaled weapons port there, so you could mount other accessories on him.

There’s not much to say here, but there’s not much going on, either.

Overall

What a strange mixture of highs and lows this little creature is. The big high is his cat mode, which I’ll go on record as saying is probably actually my favorite traditional (non-Beast Wars) Ravage that I own. He’s screen accurate, a nice small size, and extremely detailed and poseable for his scale, a real fun little guy who really feels “just right” on the diagram of size versus complexity. The alternate mode is almost nothing, though, a box that’s clearly a folded-up character, that you can maybe pretend is a gun turret if you squint. But as a robot cat creature, he can’t be beat.

In fact, I got him as an accessory for Soundwave, but I’m more impressed with him solo than I thought I’d be. That’s kind of the rub: He’s meant to go with that Voyager, and even has a part meant for him, so a lot of people are going to get him as an add-on to Soundwave, and not give his solo alternate mode a second look, since it’s moreso meant to live in Soundwave’s chest.

But, for what he is, I do think his cat mode goes above and beyond, and makes him into something that’s much more than an add-on for a larger bot.

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